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29 April 2013

Its Just a HAT! Right...?

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”

― Robert Frost

Me in my "Life Is Good" hat, Tobacco Caye, Belize

For about two weeks or so, I've been going nuts looking for my navy blue "Life Is Good" hat. Chances are, if you've seen me on the street, I'm wearing that hat and my government issued dog tags. I'm used to having my head covered from as long as I can remember and it drives me absolutely nuts when I lose a hat. I will wear out a hat or lose it before I move on. I've finally recovered it when I got invited over to my bud Chris' house to watch a UFC fight. Just as I stepped in the door, he handed me back my hat that I had inadvertently left there from a few weeks back when we were watching one of the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four match-ups.

Getting it back made me stop for a second to contemplate the sense of relief I was feeling to an object of clothing. Yeah, everybody's got that favorite shirt, lucky tie, or sentimental article of attire, but I can't necessarily articulate why the hat had become so special. I can understand some of my previous head gear favorites. I had a Kangol my brother gave me once. I lost a Dallas Cowboy hat who used to be my favorite NFL team. I was pissed when my girlfriend's dog at my Murray State University hat while I was still in college.

I had no such history with this hat. It wasn't even my first Life Is Good brand hat. I had my first one for only a few days when it blew off my head in strong winds while I was trying to get a shot of a busted-up pier along the Gulf Coast. It blew off into the water. I had hoped it would float back to shore but instead it just skirted about 30 feet off the shore-line for a good 300 yards before I lost site of it. Had it not already been after dark and had I not been alone, I would have left my shoes and cell phone on the shore and gone after it. But I felt I would have been stupid to go into unfamiliar waters by myself in the dark. I still came back the next day and walked the shore line for a good mile before giving up.

"If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of."

- Bruce Lee

This hat held no such memories, but retained value nonetheless. The closest answer to my self-directed question may just be the brand: Life Is Good. Because it is. It can be crappy and downright seemingly unfair at times, but life is good. No matter how shitty it might be for you at the moment, you are alive and that means there's a chance of hope. There is no hopelessness as long as you draw breath. People have searched for the meaning of life since recorded history. Scientists today are searching tirelessly throughout the visible universe to find other evidence of life. Governments all over spend billions upon billions in an effort to hunt for planets like the Earth looking for possibilities of potential life.

They have found nothing of the sort. As far as we can see, light-years into our galaxy and beyond, we...right here on this tiny speck of dust, are the only life-forms in existence. There are 6 billion people on this planet. There are likely 60 billion more different forms of life for every person. Yet here we stand, bent on killing ourselves and our own planet via wars, crime, pollution, global warming, etc. I just don't understand why we have to be mean to one another despite having differences. As far as we know, we are all we have. Despite our multitudes here on Earth, we are a rarity in the universe. Life is not cheap. Life is Good.

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